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Turkey Scallop

A casserole of shredded cold turkey layered with crumbs, butter, gravy, and eggs, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turkey Scallop

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove meat from the bones of the cold turkey, discarding skin and gristle, and chop finely.

Layer and bake

  1. In a buttered dish, layer cracker or bread crumbs, moistening slightly with milk.

  2. Spread a layer of minced turkey, adding bits of stuffing, pepper, salt, and small pieces of butter.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is nearly full, pouring in gravy diluted with hot water and seasoned with Worcestershire sauce and catsup before the top layer.

  4. Prepare a crust of cracker crumbs soaked in warm milk, seasoned with salt, and beaten with 2 eggs, and spread over the top.

  5. Dot with butter, bake until golden, and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Turkey + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together822 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Turkey + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together281 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the crumb crust and set into a firm, custard-like topping as it bakes.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and gravy, giving the layers body and a soft, absorbent texture.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor that keeps the turkey layers from drying out.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the top crust during baking.

The step that matters

Dot with butter, bake until golden, and serve hot.. The crust needs enough heat to set the beaten egg and brown the surface without drying the layers beneath. Baking until golden, rather than by time alone, signals that the egg has set.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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